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The names of the Goth characters in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus are pretty scary. The recently defeated and deceased old Goth king is called Priam, which makes the Goth Queen Tamora something of a Helen. If you recall Helen ran off with Paris to Troy and was given refuge by Priam. Her cuckolded husband Menelaus went after her with his brother Agamemnon and eventually brought her back (without punishing her). Tamora, a play on the Biblical name Tamar (generic for a young heiress/princess), is also reclaimed.

Titus Andronicus and his brother Marcus correspond to Menelaus and Agamemnon. They defeat the Goths (neo-Trojans) and bring Tamor to Rome, where she also is not directly punished, but claimed by the Roman Emperor Saturnius as his new queen after Lavinia, the daughter of Titus Andronicus, refuses to marry him. Lavinia of Greek myth was taken away from Turnus and given to the hero Aeneus. Lavinia of Shakespeare's play is first engaged to Saturnius' brother Bassianus and prefers him as "Turnus" to Saturnius as "Aeneus". Lavina ends up getting raped and mutilated by two sons of Tamora, and then killed by her own father.

The play Titus Andronicus could have been called "The Roman Tragedy" and as an obvious variation on the theme of the slightly earlier "The Spanish Tragedy" written by Kyd shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In the Spanish Tragedy the character Hieronimo is defeated fairly in battle but in death still seeks to be revenged. In this quest he gains not the support of heaven but of the underworld gods. The result is a sequence of catastrophies and royal murders for the court of Spain. The implicit message is that England had defeated Spain's navy fairly and squarely and that seeking revenge for this by Spain would be both inappropriate and calamitous. The play Titus Andronicus sends a similar message to Rome, who was in cohoots with the neo-Goths of the Holy Roman Empire. For Rome and the Empire to strike back at Elizabeth, who was typecast as the Virgin Queen and chaste Lavinia/Lucrecia, and despite her neo-Lavinia defiance, will bring on disastrous results for all parties.